Local schools look to continue progress in FAI five-a-side tournament

Six local national schools will look to take a big step towards playing at the Aviva Stadium when lining out in the Westmeath county finals of the 2026 FAI Primary Schools five-a-side soccer tournament at Gainstown, Mullingar.

Playing at the national stadium is the ultimate reward for schools who make it through to the All-Ireland final stages, but before then the local schools must come through the county and provincial rounds having already progressed in the county regional stages.

The tournament is for students from fourth, fifth and sixth classes and today, pupils from Baylin NS, Coosan NS, Scoil na gCeithre Maistri and Tang NS will participate in the boys' competition. Tang NS is also represented in the girls' competition along with Ardnagrath NS and An Grianán NS, Mount Temple. Proceedings in Gainstown are scheduled to commence from 10am this morning (Wednesday, March 25).

The winning schools from today's regional competition will progress to Leinster level with 28 schools nationwide eventually making it to the Aviva Stadium for national finals on Wednesday, May 27.

The annual competition offers boys and girls from fourth, fifth and sixth classes the opportunity to participate in a fun, blitz day format competition. Last year’s edition was the largest in the competition’s history with more than 44,000 players involved throughout the country. The programme has seven sections to cater for all school sizes and there are separate competitions for boys and girls, with girls also permitted to play in the boys’ competitions. There will be 316 events as part of the national programme across the country.